Absurd Minds

Setting up the pre-Source version(s) of WorldCraft/Hammer is a huge turnoff, but It can be done ! This first post is directions for things you HAVE to do in order to configure Valve Hammer to a functional point.


Step 1.) Launch Hammer, then up a the top right, you'll see "Tools." Click on it, and a dropdown box should appear. Click on "Options" at this point.

Step 2.) A new window will appear :
Click on "Game Configurations at the top, and your screen should have switched tabs to and screen that looks like: EXCEPT IT WILL BE BLANK AND THATS WHAT YOU WANT !
Step 3.) Click on the "Edit" button under "Configurations" to the right of the white line. (Refer to the picture if your confused)

Step 4.) A new window will pop up. Click on the "Add" button. Then enter whatever you want. If your planing on making a map for Half-Life, then enter HL or for Counter Strike: CS. Or whatever else you want. This name can be whatever you want and won't affect anything else !

Step 5.) Under "Game Data Files" hit the "Add" button, and point the browser thingy that comes up to the .fgd file that should have come with the .zip/.rar file you downloaded. If not, then google :
halflife.fgd --- need this for Half Life and Half Life mods like CS
teamfortress.fgd --- used for Team Fortress Classic. Woah.
Save the file somewhere intelligent-most likely with the rest of your hammer crap-, then point the little browser thing at the file.

Step 6.) As soon as you do that the next four boxes ("Texture Format" "Map Type" "Defauly PointEntity Class" "Defauly SolidEntity Class") should fill up with stuff. If they dont, then you have an invalid/corrupt .fgd. Just try a different one !

Step 7.) "Game Executable Directory" point this at the .exe of the game your mapping for IF YOU WANT. You CAN leave this blank if you want.

Step 8.) Skip "Mod Directory." It doesnt do anything anyways...

Step 9.) Point "Game Directory" at the "Home" folder for whatever game your planning on mapping for. For Halflife its the "valve" folder inside of the "Half-Life" folder. For CS, its "cstrike" or "czero" in the "nameofthegamehere" folder.

Step 10.) "RMF Directory" Point this at the folder where you want your .rmf/.map files to be saved.

Step 11.) Click on "Apply" at the bottom of the window.

Step 12.) Change to the "Build Programs" tab at the top of the window, and you'll get a blank template of : Step 13.) Make sure the "Configuration" in this tab matches the "Configuraion" you created in the "Game Configurations" tab a couple minutes ago.

Step 14.) "Game Executable" is optional. If you want your game to start as soon as a map is finished compiling then point this to the .exe of the game your mapping for. I personally choose to keep this box blank.

Step 15.) Point "CSG Executable" at the csg.exe file that should have come with your hammer download. If your missing these files than your @%#!&*

Step 16.) Point "BSP Executable" at the bsp.exe file

Step 17.) Point "VIS Executable" at the vis.exe file

Step 18.) Point "RAD Executable" at the rad.exe file GASP!

Step 19.) Under "Place compiled maps in this directory before running the game" (thats a mouthful), hit "Browse" like you normally do and point it to whatever folder you want the compiled .bsp file to be saved in. Most likely the maps folder of whatever game your mapping for.

Step 20.) Hit "Apply" and then go to the top and hit the "Textures" tab.

Step 21.) Click "Add WAD" and make your way to any WADS you would like to use

NOTE: WADS DO NOT usually come when you download Hammer. Youll just have to google "half life wads" or "team fortress wads" ect....

IMPORTANT NOTE: DO NOT EVER USE MORE THAN 8 WADS OR ELSE THERE IS A 99& CHANCE YOULL GET WEIRD ERRORS WHILE COMPILING

Step 22.) Hit "Apply" to save your changes. At this point you can now make perfectly functional maps ! Happy Mapping !

The Textures tab (in case anybody was wondering)







NOTE TO ANUBIS/SERIAL: For some reason the editor wouldnt let me add more than 3 files/attachments to a single post. Just something to check out I guess.

Alright, first off, any information of this - or any following posts - is OPTIONAL.

First up is the "General" Tab - which is the same in both version 3.4 and 3.5, but 3.3 is unknown.


The General options let you configure miscellaneous Valve Hammer Editor Options.

Window Setup

• Use independent window configurations - The editor's Independent Window Configuration is simple to use and extremely handy. It lets you customize your windows setup virtually any way you'd like. To add new windows, select New Window from the Window menu. Windows can be resized any way you like. For example, you could have four windows, one for each view (top side front and camera view) and you can have the top, side, and front views taking up pretty much the whole screen, and have just a small square in one of the corners for the camera view. Or you can do whatever else you want. If this view is disabled, you will have on window where you can adjust all four views at the same time.

• Load default window positions with maps - if this is checked, the last used window setup will be loaded when you load a map. If this is not checked, you can still load the window setup manually using the Load Window State button on the Map View toolbar.

Miscellanious

• Undo levels - the undo levels default to the last 50 actions. This can take up quite a bit of memory. Setting this to a lower value may improve performance slightly. In other words, how many times can you "control+z" to undo an action.

• Allow grouping/ungrouping while Ignore Groups is checked - when Ignore Groups is toggled on, this setting will allow you to group and ungroup objects, but they still wont be acknowleged as groups until Ignore Groups is turned off.

• Stretch arches to fit original bounding rectangle - when this is set, arches will fill the entire bounding box that you've defined, otherwise they will treat the bounding rectangle as a "full circle" area and only take up a portion of that area. I personally leave this box unchecked, but Its all about preference at this stage.







Next up is the 2D Views Tab that should look like (below) in Valve Hammer Editor 3.4 and 3.5, however, 3.3 (WorldCraft) is unknown.

The 2D Views options allow you to configure a number of the editor's behaviors. Settings here will depend largely on personal preference.

Options

• Crosshair cursor - when this is enabled, the cursor will turn into a crosshair when it is over a brush.

• Default to 15 degree rotations - when rotating a brush, the rotations will be in 15 degree increments rather than 1 degree.

• Display scrollbars - if this is enabled, each 2D view will have a set of scrollbars to allow you to move the view around. If this is not enabled, you can still move around the 2D views by holding down the Space bar and clicking and dragging inside a 2D view with the mouse.

• Draw vertices - when enabled, brush vertices will be drawn in the 2D views.

• White-on-black color scheme - Brushes will appear as white lines drawn on a black background. When this is not enabled, the reverse is in effect.

• Keep group when clone-dragging - Select this feature if you want newly cloned objects to retain grouping properties of the original object when clone dragging (selecting an object, holding down shift, and dragging the object).

• Center on camera after movement in 3D - Use this option if while using the mouse to move around the 3D view while in camera mode, you want the 2D views to automatically center on the new camera position.

• Use VisGroup colors for object lines - When this is enabled, the object lines for any non-entity brush will be the color specified in its VisGroup when viewed in the 2D views. Objects not associated with a visgroup will still appear white.

• Arrow keys nudge selected object/vertex - When this is enabled, you can move a selected object or vertex by using the arrow keys. The movement is performed relative to the current active 2D view.

• Reorient primitives on creation in the active 2D view - When this is enabled, primitives will be oriented with their "top" shown in whichever 2D view they were created in. This is most easily shown when creating a cylinder. With this option disabled, the cylinder will be oriented so that the round part shows up in the xy 2D view, regardless of which view you created it in. This is mostly just a time saving feature.

• Automatic infinite selection in 2D windows (no Enter) - When this is enabled, dragging a selection box over an object or objects will immediately cause them to be selected (normally you would need to press Enter). This option can be turned on and off from the MapOperations toolbar as well.

• Selection box selects by center handles only - When using a selection box to select a number of objects, it defaults to selecting any object the box touches. With this option enabled, it will only select those objects whose "handles" (the small "x" at the center of each object) are within the selection box.

Grid

• Size - This determines the initial grid size when you start a new map. The options are 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, and 256 units. You can change the grid size while editing by pressing "[" and "]".

• Intensity - This is a slide bar from 0 to 100. It sets the intensity (brightness) of the grid lines.

• Highlight every 64 units - This highlights the grid every 64 units.

• Highlight every 8 grid lines - This will highlight one line every 8 grid lines. The actual number can be set to whatever you like.

• Hide grid smaller than 4 pixels - If the grid size is smaller than 4 pixels, it will generally appear as a gray background instead of a grid, unless zoomed in extremely close. When enabled, this option turns off the grid when it gets that small.

• Dotted grid - Enabling this option causes the grid to be displayed as a series of dots, rather than lines. This may help if you find that the grid lines blend into your map lines.

Kk, now Its 3D Views turn, however, there is a slight difference between the 3D Views tab in Version 3.4 from that in Version 3.5, so I guess we get to cover them both !!!

Version 3.4 3D Views Screen:
Performance

• Back clipping plane - This sets the distance in units at which the editor will stop drawing in it's 3D view. If you are finding the 3D performance to be too slow, set this to a lower value.

• Filter textures - when this feature is enabled, bilinear filtering is done on textures resulting in a smoother non-pixelated look when viewed closeup. Disabling this may result in a slight speed increase, or a dramatic speed increase on older video cards.

Example of Texture Filtering:
Note: if you disable texture filtering, this is known to cause texture swimming and loss of texture perspective correction. This generally occurs with older video cards.

Navigation

• Use mouselook navigation - When this is enabled, "mouselook navigation" will be available. The z hotkey toggles this mode on and off. While on, moving the mouse will change the viewing angle in the 3D view, and the WASD keys can be used for forward, left, backward, and right movement.

• Reverse mouse Y axis - When you are using the mouse to navigate through the 3D view, if this is enabled pulling the mouse backwards will cause the view to look upward, and moving the mouse forward will cause the view to look downward.

• Forward speed - You can set the maximum forward movement speed here.

• Time to top speed - This is the amount of time it takes to go from 0 to the above maximum movement speed (basically this sets the acceleration).
General

• Reverse selection order - User's of some video cards may find that when selecting objects in the 3D view, the furthest object will get selected rather than the one you clicked on. If you experience this problem, enable this to reverse the selection order.




Version 3.5's...err...version of the 3D Views Screen :
There are really only two changes.

1.) "Animate Models" and "Model render distance" - Do you want your models to act the same way they would if you were looking at them in-game? And from how far away do you want to be able to view the animations inside of the camera view? Both this feature being turned on and a higher distance will cause Hammer to run slower.

2.) My personal favorite new addition: THE ABILITY TO CHANGE THE BACKROUND COLOR!! YAAAAAAAAAY!!!! Now you dont have to use black as the backround for your 3D camera view, unsted you can make it white, or blue, or a green, or bage, or TURQUOISE even, or maybe a nice PURPLE (oh yea, purple)

*TYLER STFU ITS JUST A COLOR NOT YOUR #$%^!@* WEDDING DAY*


Uhhh, anyways, there ya go?

I recommend you download Zoner's Half Life Tools

www.zhlt.info

Download the .zip file and replace Zoner's compile tools ie: CSG BSP VIS RAD, with your own. Now you have more powerful compiling tools !!! Further info on Zoner's Half Life Tools can be found

Here